Chrono Recoil: A New Quest press B to continue
by HadrasVorshoth
Summary: Chrono and co. battled Lavos. The Player got involved, and now they're trying to save not just one universe... But all of them.  is kinda a mega-crossover with other videogames.
1. In which Chrono is really confused

**Hi. Dyldo here.... I sometimes write stuff about rape and death and stuff, as can be seen in my Toy Story fanfiction that I'm not sure how to continue. This one is going to be pretty much a Teen, but... I find it difficult to think in the manner which most people consider is acceptable for Teenagers... Maybe it's because I'm all grown up and I can LEGALLY go onto porn sites now...**

**Well, anyway, this is T until I decide to have Chrono [or Crono... I prefer it with the h, but I think the game only lets you have 5 letters, so... yeah... [personally, I changed his name to Chron in the game.... Was better, if incomplete.]]**

**I only recently encountered Chrono Trigger, which is odd, as I had a friend with a SNES when I was little, I'm sure of it, because he had that cool adaptor for the SNES that let you play gameboy games on it, which was rad... We played my version of Pokemon Red almost up until the Elite Four on his TV... Ah, I miss those days... I don't miss the tvs back then though, 10 year ago... FUCK they were heavy.**

**Oh, and by the way, I swear sometimes, as my last sentence is evidence of, but I don't really think that's enough to make it M... Maybe if I said something like Mary likes to suck the thick, throbbing phallus of the underage cockerel, but yeah, I'm unlikely to say that, am I?**

**...**

**Yes I do just realise I just said that, so stfu. Also... teeheehee phallus sounds funny. "The name's... Phallus... George Phallus..."  
**

"Chrono... Chrono... Wake up!"

I woke up.

There, my mum was shouting at me to wake up.

_Does she ever sleep.... Actually... Where can she sleep in our house, my bed's the only one here! ... Better not dwell on that._

I got up.

"You must've been so excited about the Millenium Fair that you couldn't sleep, poor dear..."

_No, I couldn't sleep because... This feels wrong. Like I should have been somewhere else. _

"Your friend Lucca is waiting for you in the fair... She's got something to show you..."

_Hopefully she'll finally admit to that crush she has on me before I get bored and go after some other chick... GRAGH why does that sound so familiar in my head..._

I got dressed quickly, and grabbed my bag. It felt heavier than what I remembered.

I opened it.

_Huh? There's a bunch of feathers in here... And teeth... And a bunch of Ethers and Tonics... And what's this?_

I pulled out a huge sword.

On its hilt, there was the name _Slasher_.

_Ooookay, that's pretty awesome. You know what? I'm not going to question why I have a cool sword in my bag. Let's just run with it._

I went downstairs and had breakfast.

Then I asked my mum for my allowance.

"Okay... But only so that you can do stuff at the fair."

I ran out of the house, wondering why I had a strange sense of foreboding about this fair.

I got there, and my breath was panting.

An old man guffawed at me.

"Rushing around, Crono? You're such a silly child... You're so much like your father in some ways..."

I felt a flash of confusion then.

_My... father?_

_GRAAAAAGGGHHH HEADACHE_

I almost fell to the floor.

The old man came closer.

"Are you okay?" he said, the smell of cheap cider reeking off of him.

"M... M.... Melchior?" I stammered, finding it hard to concentrate.

"Ah. You remember me. Good. Now... In what context? Am I the friendly swordsmith in your little town? Or do you remember me from the times of old?"

"Huh? Old? Urgh..." I said, confused and nauseous.

"Don't worry Chrono... You're fine.... That's just the effect of the chronitons in your bloodstream transmuting some parts of your brain to fit the timeline. That's why you can't remember the future- it hasn't yet been changed into that way, and there's no way you can remember it, logically, as your actual body hasn't been to any of those places yet..."

He got really close to me then, and opened my eyes.

"... Yep, your entire party looks like it's been affected then... Good thing I have a good memory, eh?"

"Melchior... What's going on?" I asked, a fair question considering I was on the ground, gagging for air.

"Oh... Just a bit of time travel shenanigans.... Basically, my boy... You died, and then you returned to life here."

"I... Died?"

A flash of memory went through my head.

_A being of immense size stood before me. With a mouth-thing that was sorta like a 3-parted beak. It struck me. I felt darkness close in. I heard Marle scream. Lucca looked pissed suddenly, and looked more furious than I had ever seen her before. Frog was shocked. Ayla looked like she was on the verge of breaking down. Robo was... Okay, Robo isn't the most emotional guy, but he looked unhappy with the situation anyway. _

_They all watched me die, and avenged me. As the darkness took over my soul, and I felt myself start to erode... I felt a surge of... existence, shoot through my slowly decaying spirit._

_I was going to live, because they decided that they were going to bring me back. Swap my body for the doll you can get at Norenstein Bekkler's fairground shop..._

_Because they believed it could work, I was brought back to life._

_Fight, Crono, for everlasting peace!_

_..._

_Okay, my memories are fucked up._

Melchior was watching me cautiously.

"Lavos?" I questioned.

He smiled, and generally looked happier.

"Good. You remember."

We walked around the fair.

"I was once the Guru of Life, in a land called Zeal. You remember that, yes?"

"...Yes. There were 3 Gurus, right?"

"Correct- there's Gaspar, the Guru of time, and there's Belthasar, Guru of Reason. Here's my advice though- never challenge Belthasar to a game of poker, and never, ever, ask Gaspar to do anything which involves being at a certain place at a certain time- he's got a time machine called the Poxyresin or something..."

"... E... E...po... GAH I can't remember." I remembered the time machine/airplane/thing that Gaspar had built, and had memories of Lucca and Marle flying it off of a plane. _The Blackbird. I remember the name of the plane, just not the time machine they got off of it with._

"Odd. That happened after your death. You shouldn't be able to remember that, resurrection or not."

He poked me in the shoulder a few times, then in the belly, and then on my forehead.

"It's as I thought. You've been affected by someone of great power outside our universe. Not quite parallel... More.... intersecting. Similar, but with very little in common."

"huh?" I asked, confused.

"Our world is, as you know, called Earth. Most civilisations in many universes end up calling their planet something like that, as they simply don't think of it as much else- it is where we, and the very earth as in soil and dirt, come from."

_Why is he telling me this? I am on the floor, feeling like I am going to die [again], and he's moidering me about alternate universes and all this bullshit and... GAH ENOUGH WITH THE HEADACHES_

"Our universes is one of the more interesting ones, with special powers. Magic. You remember your element, Crono?"

I remembered the power that I wielded before my death.

"Lightning."

"Good. You've got a good mind- stubborn enough to face down those chronitons in your body. Now... In a universe far away, there is another Earth, with a different history. That universe is what some people suspect is a 'real world'. In other words, many of the people of Zeal believed that their entire existence was nothing real, merely a story, a DREAM. The people who created this dream were known as the Developers. They had the power to create and destroy and replicate whatever they saw fit to. They were gods.... But they were also mortal."

_Mortal gods. Right. Can we get to the part where this headache goes now? PLEASE?_

"Now... they created our universe. They made a great evil within it, extending across multiple times. Lavos. They also created other, alternate universes. However, they aren't your concern. "

_FOR SPEKKIO'S SAKES, HURRY UP THIS IS FUCKING ARGH_

"Eventually... They left. And left the 'heros', or 'partymembers' of this universe, spread out amongst different times, to face off this evil."

_'_

"You were puppeteered by a being of the same universe as the developers. His name was the Player. He controlled the events that transpired, in a vain hope to better this world."

_ARRGGGHHH wait, what? It wasn't us that fought then?_

"It was most certainally your efforts that lead to the destruction of Lavos, but it was the Player that encouraged you subconsciously to do so. Slight, subtle hints, for his power had not the strength to control you outright. And then you died. From what I can tell, there was another way to bring you back- The Time Egg, or the Chrono Trigger. Gaspar has it. He would have given it to your party. However, you all destroyed Lavos, and the story ended, leaving you dead, and the world not entirely better. Robo never saved his future- the robots were still organic-hating monsters in his time. Ayla still had Reptites to fight, and it turned out that the events that transpired lead to her own death- killed by her own daughter in an attempt to gain control over the clan. Lucca died a lonely spinster, raising a orphan she found with a great deal of bitterness, reminiscent somewhat of her mother after the Accident. Marle eventually was forced into doing Princessly-stuff properly, and lived out the rest of her life in misery, eventually producing many children to a prince from a land far south from here. I ended up in an endless timeloop, with today being the only time it has changed from the pattern, and last but not least... Frog commited suicide in despair from his curse."

_Fuck. _

"The Player left the game unfinished. The lands still die. Even without Lavos... The dark, gloomy, future still happens. Everyone dies out. Game over."

_Double fuck._

"However... It appears as though he has had a moment of kindness to his actions- he has given you new life. He has given all of the party members most of their memories, to guide them as they go. He also has given you most of your most powerful equipment, but not all of it- without the challenge, I would suppose that our universe would feel insubstantial. From as far as I can tell in my loops through the past 30,000 years, you're the most important person in this universe to fix things..."

_So... I've got to beat Lavos again?_

"Beating Lavos isn't all you need to do. Lavos was merely a cherry on the socio-politico-geographical mess that our world has. You need to defeat more than one reject from Zebes to save the world."

I had a important question then.

"Zebes?"

Melchior's face fell.

"Oh... Shit. I wasn't supposed to tell you that, was I?"

_... This sounds interesting._

"What or where is Zebes?"

He looked embarrased.

"Zebes is... a planet. Far away from here. But it was destroyed a long time ago. Lavos was originally a creature called a Metroid. It basically was a small, flying, squidmonster."

I remembered Lavos, and realised that some of its aquatic appearence was still there for some part.

"Of course, it evolved over many millions of years... But... Being able to sense sentient lives at great distance, it used those planets to reproduce itself... And then it found this planet."

_Less science-fiction, more Tonic, this headache hurts like hell!_

I got up then, as the old swordsmith continued.

"The descendant of that one metroid is what you know as Lavos. It found our planet, and, burrowed deep into the core. There, it did what it's done since it's left Zebes- sent out telepathic brainwaves to the lifeforms, increasing their intellect, making them civilised, and then increasing its power magically. Ultimatelly, the power means it can produce a spawn, and then eject it to another sentient planet, where the process will be repeated again. What you know as the End of Time is just the end of time for our planet- it's when Lavos basically fucks up our entire planet and it's just old Gaspar on his little stone island, floating in space. Or something. I never really UNDERSTOOD his part in all this."

_How do you know all this? Some of this is before our planet existed..._

"The Player, whoever he may be, has granted me the ability to remember what has happened in each of the billions of loops in time our universe has had."

"Sounds like he's a complete twat."

"I suspect so."

Melchior's face then contorted in that way which usually meant that he was about to act more like a crazy old man, which I guess is fair enough, considering that he must be immortal or SOMETHING.

I decided to go up to Leene's Bell. If nothing else, I might meet Marle... Hell, I might be able to get HER to bump into me, meaning I'd be slightly innocent in the court case that happens after we've bounced back and forth in time...

There, she was pacing around.

_... Her amulet is clearly still on her neck. Thus, she isn't pacing because she's lost it. Um.... Is she just... INSANE? Why would anyone walk back and forth in one place?_

I fought the impulse to walk back and forth in one place, and then walked up to her.

"Hey, miss... Are you oka-OOPH"

She barrelled into me, in an epic tackle hug.

Then she realised what she did.

"Oops. Sorry. You just looked... Never mind."

_... The memories. Flashing back, but not completely there. Melchior awoke my memories, mostly.... I'm not sure what was going on with Magus and Frog, but yeah, most of my memories are in here..._

_She must be similar, except she hasn't had her mind awoken._

"It's okay... I have one of those faces..." I lied.

"Have you seen my amulet? I had it just a second ago, but, when I knocked into you..."

I pointed to where it landed the first time we met.

"It's there."

"Where?"

_God! She's looking directly AT it! This is just STUPID..._

I walked up to the amulet.

"It's here, by my right foot!"

"I can't see it..."

_... Either this is some weird intervention on behalf of this apparently insane 'Player', or she really cannot see the amulet. Either way... I guess I'd better give it to her..._

I picked up the amulet and waved it in the air.

"How the flying aquatic demon thing did you not see this?" I said, cleverly asking a genuine question but also prompting her memories.

"How the... what did you say? You mumbled. Thanks for helping me find my amulet though..."

She looked worried, and then began to pace again.

"um... Are you okay?" I asked, actually feeling concern.

_Also I have the faint vestiges of a memory of a vision of me and her living together. Sure, she's a bit of a ditz, but if a vision says she's gonna be my wife potentially, might as well keep her a bit safe..._

"Yes... I mean No... I mean... GRAGGGHHHHH"

She fell over, clutching her head.

_The headaches. HEY! My headache's gone! This is like a really bad story from one of the Bards that come through here sometimes... Oh great, now she's twitching... If things turn out the same way, does this mean that I'll get accused of knocking her out?_

I resisted an urge to hide her in the bushes somewhere, and grabbed her shoulders.

She stopped twitching.

".. Ch... Chro.... ugh..." she said.

_She remembers. Slightly._

"Don't worry... Are you okay? That was quite a fall you had." I said, realising how hard it was to pretend I didn't really know her when I knew her quite well and even had a vision of a future where I could know her in the bibilical sense.

Her eyes fluttered open.

"I'm fine. Thanks again for helping me find my amulet."

She got up suddenly, like one of Lucca's robotic inventions.

"Could you show me around this fair? I'm new around here, and you're a local, so..."

_Same thing, but this time it seems creepy._

"Okay... I guess I could take you to the Tent of Horrors..."

"ooh that would be great!"

_Something's wrong. No person really wants to go to the Horror tent... Hey... Hang on a second... WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL MY SILVER POINTS WAAAAAAAA_

_Okay, pull yourself together, Chrono! You've battled FREAKING LAVOS, there's no point having a hissy fit over a few million pieces of _

_I WANNA MAH SILVER_

"Um... I seem to have lost my silver points... We won't be able to go in there then, costs silver... We could go check out what that kid by that fountain is so happy about..." I said, remembering that it was that kid that told me that Lucca's invention was ready although in the original timeline I had only just come down from that direction.

"Okay!" Marle squeaked enthusiastically, and I felt a surge of dislike over the idea over this enthusiastic bubbly big-boobed woman potentially being my wife... It would be like being married to a puppy that was given a sexy human body.

We went over to the kid, and it raised its head, jerkily.

"LUCCA'S INVENTION'S READY YOU SHOULD GO AND SEE HER." it said, loudly and slightly scarily.

_Oooohkay. I'm just going to go over to her Telepad then and get away from you, creepy little girl..._

We were about to go over to the telepad, but then Marle stopped by a candy stall.

"Give me a sec, I just want some candy."

_And it's this bit that is the final bit of evidence in the court case against me. Bugger. Hmm... What if I just wander off..._

"Hey! Wait! I'm not done!" she shouted, and dragged me back to the chocolate buttons.

I tried to sneak away again.

"Don't drag me like some kind of kidnapper!"

I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the stall owner's ears perk up.

_Fuck. That's going to come back again, isn't it?_

"Kidnap? I'm not even touching you, you daft woman!"

"And why not?" she said, jumping up and down in irritation, her boobs bouncing up and down.

_Get a bra! Some guys might bow down to you because you've got titties, but I like to think that being 18 and having being DEAD once has matured me slightly..._

"Because I'm not that kind of guy!" I said angrily at her.

_She wasn't this desperate in the original timeline._

"What, so you're going to show me around the sights here, purely out of being a gentleman? You're not going to think of me in a romantic light at all?" she said, her eyes beginning to show the slightest trace of shininess you get before a torrent of tears.

_Dammit. I'm a sucker for girls who are crying. That's how I became friends with Lucca in the first place... She was crying after her mother lost her legs, I comforted her... GAH I don't really want to be friends with Marle if she's going to be the annoying love interest constantly wanting a bang with the chronorod.... Wait, what's wrong with me... Hot, blonde, broad-chested woman wants my manflesh... And I'm resisting? GAH BUT WAIT I THINK LAVOS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN GETTING SOME PRINCESS BOOTY._

"Listen, _princess_," I said, using my knowledge of who she really was to unnerve her slightly, "I've only just met you, and you've wanted to drag me around every single which way possible... I'm not into your type anyway. The pampered little girl-types just aren't my thing. I already HAVE a girlfriend anyway!"

That was a lie. _But a necessary one. Sex is not what we want. Also, she's basically been screaming that she wants to mount you in the biggest fair of our history- I think that this is mortifying enough for you without dragging it out more._

I looked around.

_Wait. No-one's listening to us, despite it being so busy here..._

I decided to test an idea.

"Hey! Heyyyyoooo..... Wimbae wombae no vest turan... Hey mister Sword Man, give me the Masamune, daylight conga here we go..." I loudly sang.

No-one reacted.

Except...

"Masamune?" Marle asked, a realisation dawning on her face.

I waited.

"Frog." she said.

I waited some more.

"..."

_Okay... She sounds EXACTLY like one of Lucca's robots... Weird._

"LAVVVOOOOSSSSSSS" she screamed out, flinging her arms back.

She fell down. Again.

Then she bounced back up.

"'sgoingonnnnnnnnn GAH!"

She clutched her head.

"Hey. Calm down. Someone called the Player sent us back so that we could take down Lavos again and do all the OTHER things we were meant to do."

"... The Player?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah. Now calm down. We need to get Lucca, and explain the situation to her."

_And maybe I can steal your sweets from you- they've made you wayy too hyper, memories flooding back or not._

"Good idea." she said, quickly becoming quiet for a change.

We went to the Telepad.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! Here, for the Millenial Fair, we have an extra-special treat for you today! We have... The Telepad!"

_Oh Lucca... I wish... I wish this entire time travel fiasco never happens. But.... Lavos WILL destroy the world... We need to stop him. And that means... Time travel. Unfortunately._

"Now... Do we have a volunteer in the audience.... Oh, Crono! How about you?"

_If I remember rightly... I do it, it works, and then Marle has a go, and then is trapped in the past for a month whilst I jump in the portal after her, with a Lucca appearing in that time a few hours later._

_The amulet... It was the same kind they had in Zeal... Hmm. We CAN time travel, but.... I want to hold it off. For a little._

"Sure." I said, smiling.

I went in the teleporter. Lucca and her father whacked some controls wildly.

_What happened to safety proceedures? Don't you have to check my body for anything which can mess up your teleporter? you mentioned that when you first started to work on this..._

SHOOM.

I saw a flash of blue light, a strange sensation, and then reappeared on the other teleporter.

"TA-DAH!" I shouted, which got some laughs out of the older crowd.

I walked over to Marle and whispered quickly.

"Give me your amulet for a second, then teleport, same way as you did the first time. I don't want people to panic about you, Nadia."

She nodded, and slipped the amulet into my pocket.

"Ooh, I want to have a go Chrono!" she said, enthusiastically. Only one who had travelled with her for many months would be able to tell it was false enthusiasm.

She ran over to the pad.

"Zap me over!"

Lucca looked at her critically.

"Hey, Chrono, where did you pick up this cutie?" she said, the slightest tinge of jealousy in her voice.

_Dammit just zap her there's more important things than your little crush on me!_

"Oh... I just bumped into her downtown..." I said, casually.

I saw Lucca's eyes get wetter, but she hid it well by shaking her head.

_Sigh... Today's just going to be one of those days when every girl I meet is crying around me..._

"Okay!" she said, spinning in place for a moment, "Let's zappa the cutie!"

She whacked a big red button this time, and then...

The gate that I knew was there opened.

_Fuck. Even without the amulet, it's still happening._

Marle flew off into the portal. Lucca looked scared. I felt anger.

_OH COME ON! I CHANGED THE WAY THINGS HAPPNED! ISN'T THAT ENOUGH? WHY MUST IT..._

"She must've had some of that weird red stuff on her, that stuff that makes it not work right..." Lucca mumbled to her father.

_Red stuff? You mean... Like the red stone that the prehistoric people gave us? Like the meteorite that brought Lavos to our world? HOLY CRAP OF COURSE. WE STILL HAD A BIT OF THE STONE WHEN I DIED- IT WAS IN MARLE'S PURSE!_

_The people of Zeal must have used some of the same rock to make these amulets for the royal family... OKAY!_

_It's time to be a hero. _

"Lucca. She dropped this amulet." I said, after all the people left.

"Huh? It's made of the red stuff! Awesome!" she was happier than I had ever seen her before.

"You reckon I should go and do the hero thing?"

Her eyes widened.

"Hero?... GAH!"

She clutched her head, as I and Marle had done earlier.

"You remember, don't you."

"Bits... Since last night... I remember a robot... Kinda like Gato, but smaller... But blockier... His name was Robo... And I remember... You... Fighting bravely... Your... gah... muscles... UHHHHHHH!"

It was a good thing Lucca's father was out of earshot- that last moan of pain sounded kinda... well... Not very painful.

"Listen... Lavos is still going to kill us all- someone called the Player brought us back to life to have a second chance. Melchior said something about him not having full power, which is why we don't have ALL of our memories and equipment... But we have enough to get an advantage. Also, apparently, there's a lot of stuff we can do to prevent the future from being so bleak."

"... Fiona's forest." she said, remembering the woman in the past.

"Exactly. That, and other points in history, I think we were meant to plant some trees or something to make the atmosphere better..."

"Chrono... " she started.

"I'm going to save Marle. You're going to come after us. Together we'll find Frog and kill Magus."

"Frog... He was hot after we killed him first time..."

"huh?" I asked. _Frog... Hot? what the..._

"oh yeah... you were dead then..." she said, tears streaming down her face but her voice was level, "but yeah, we killed Magus not long after and then we killed Lavos, all on our own. It was EPIC. but... Then I saw Frog go to his home... and he was a real hottie hot hottie hot hot hot... You know?"

_Dammit. At this rate I'm stuck with Marle as a love interest- NO stop being so... sex-brained, Chrono..._

"Hotter than me?" I teased.

Lucca blushed, but then forced herself to calm down.

_Ye gads woman, you're SO obvious._

"By like, a LOT." she said, laughing in a fake manner, and punching me lightly on the arm.

_Great. Thanks for that confidence boost, friend of mine... I might just go and get myself killed again and ow headache came back okayokayiwon'tdiesheesh._

Lucca saw my face, and looked ashamed.

"I didn't mean it that way Chron..." she started.

"Don't worry about it, Lucy," I said, using her hated nickname I used to call her when we were little, "Seeing how things are going, I'm going to end up with tall blonde and empty head over then... so... yeah... Sorry. I've made things awkward."

Feeling kinda embarrased, I ran over to the telepad, and watched as Lucca, her face looking stricken somehow, tapped at the controls.

I felt myself get sucked into the Gate, and my last sight was Lucca's tear-stained face.

**I got a bit bored with this towards the end, hence the slight bit of total and utter What the Helleage towards the end... Still, it might turn out to be a good story, considering I've written 4,347 words about a bit of game that takes very little time to do, in comparison with later stages...**

**Who is the mysterious Player, and why did he give our complete failures of heroes a second chance?**

**Will there be a crossover with Earthbound, considering that one STARTS with a meteor falling to the world...**

**Will there be random quantum physics explanations?**

**Will Dyldo EVER get round to writing and FINISHING a story?**

**We'll find out next time on... My chrono trigger story that I hadn't given a name yet when I was editing this bit!!!!!**

**And remember children... When your time is up, and the moon is approaching...**

**And the light of day is long gone away...**

**You should remember to review like a Reaper...**

**Because the Reaper never forgets your review.**

**[also, that was the lamest attempt to make a reference to The World Ends With You I have ever done. I'd delete it if it wasn't a PERFECT example of how I write some crappy stuff sometimes.]  
**


	2. Plot! Confusion! Flustered Sensations!

I swirled through a shifting pattern of general... mess. or Chaos, as Lucca would say, trying to sound cleverer than she is- although she's good with technology, she's not much brighter than me... I'm a good swordsman, she's good at making.... stuff.

I remembered most of this from the first time, but... the memories were kinda hazy.

_However... Experiencing it is awesome._

Eventually the shifting lines slowed down their shifting, and I knew we were here.

I fell from mid air, and landed in my face.

_Again._

I got up, and the noise of my arrival must have alerted everything nearby, as 3 imps appeared.

I remembered that Imps were actually generally cool creatures, except that they had this annoying belief that humans should be killed.

"Listen! I mean you no harm!" I shouted at them, remembering vaguely cutting off their heads the first time round.

"Human... You lie!"

_... Great. They can't speak as well as the other ones I've met... Was that in the future or past?_

"Seriously guys. I could kill you all in just a few quick movements of my wrist, without even touching my sword. I DON'T WANT TO THOUGH. I have seen enough murder so far."

_I don't want to kill innocents unless I have to._

One of them then ran up to me and stabbed me with a tiny blade in the thigh.

_FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKYOU YOU'RE GONNA DIE!_

I let out a bloodcurdling screech, not of pain, but rage, and then reached mentally for the magic.

"Imps of the age 600AD.... Do you know what happens when a creature of your magical nature gets hit by a few billion watts of magically created electricity?"

They were too scared to answer now- I remembered that Marle once told me that my eyes go all white and I start floating in the air when using my powers- never noticed it myself.

"Let's find out, shall we?"

I unleashed the electricity into them, watching as the cells got gradually burnt away.

Then I stopped.

I only used minimal power... So I burnt off a decent chunk of their skin and a fair amount of muscle, and also, from how they were twitching, caused a lot of damage to their nervous system.

"You don't stab me and get away with just DEATH, boys. I hope the birds out here aren't... Hungry."

Two of them fainted, but one just stared at me, his eyebrow trying to turn down to show anger- a bit difficult when the muscles controlling that movement aren't exactly attatched any more.

_... I have gotten mean, haven't I? I miss when I was the naiive boy in Truce.... Meh, fuck it I've got a job to do._

I walked down the familiar path down Truce Valley, noting how the creatures I fought the first time weren't coming at me.

_Did I scare them? GOOD. I'm not here to pussyfoot around._

I eventually got out of the valley, and made my way to the castle.

_Not much to do in town anyway, from what I recall..._

I went up to the forest, took a deep breath, and went in- I hated Guardia Forest with a vengeance- slowed me down a lot every time I went through.

I saw an Imp, so I chopped off its head- I was still angry at that imp who stabbed me.

_... Hey. I didn't check the wound did I?_

I took down my pants slightly, and checked the cut.

_Huh? I've got no cuts on me... I've... healed from a 2 inch blade being stuck fully into my thigh? Sure it's possible, but STILL._

The pants still had the mark, and I remembered the pain, but the injury was totally gone.

I decided to hurry up on my way to the castle, as if the Player was intervening on my behalf, then I was going to want to sort this out as quickly as possible.

I walked up the steps, when suddenly...

"Halt! Who goes there?"

I looked up.

It was one of the gazillion squillion guards/knights/whatever that our local castle seems to be breeding and importing from god knows where- they never recruit from the local population except in legendary examples.

"My name is Chrono, sir. I am here from a land that was curious about your battle with the magician Magus."

_... I'm pretty sure Magus was Janus from the future. Gah hazy memories._

"... You're probably a spy for Magus, there are no other lands in our world."

_Dammit. Curse our usually-only-one-country planet!_

The guard were all around me, about to cart me off into the dungeons, when suddenly...

"Oi!" a loud, yet clearly feminine voice shouted.

Marle came out from the throne room, in full princess regalia.

"Don't lay one hand on him. He was one of those who helped with my escape from Magus!"

The guards all collapsed into a bow.

I remembered this from the first time, and was still amused.

_... So you figured out that the best policy is to play along with history, right? GOOD._

"Sir Chrono... I wish to speak to you in my chambers." she said, struggling to contain the giggling fit that was inside her.

I followed her up the steps to her room, leaving a bunch of guards unsure if they should come out of bowing or not.

In her room, she sat down on her bed and giggled.

"Worked it out yet, Chrono?"

"Yeah I know... You're pretending to be Queen whatsherface so history works the same way...."

"... Is Lucca coming like last time?"

"I think so. She might try to make a stop nearby 2300 and get Robot here ahead of when we originally meet him, knowing her, but I suspect that she can't go anywhere where this 'Player' wants her to."

"... Chrono... Why do you think we've all been given a second chance?"

"I don't know. With a name like the 'Player', it suggests that this is all some sick game of chess he was playing, didn't make things go to plan, and took back a bunch of moves."

"Am I going to disappear again?"

"I'm not sure. It didn't really make sense why you disappeared last time... I think because you wear your amulet a lot, it still had bits on you, and the time travelly teleporty thingie kinda acted weird with the amulet... Except when it's in any of our bags, which makes NO sense whatsoever..."

"... I haven't worn it since... since you gave it back to me."

Her eyes were slightly glistening with tears.

_Ah cockdonkey, Chrono... What is it with you and girls and tears these days? Does dying give you a tear-jerker magic power? ... actually... That would be awesome against some bad guy... Just make him end up in a fit of tears... In other news, I really want a sandwich. Wait, what? Gah I just realised something else I did differently- didn't go to Gato's thingie, and didn't go over to that sandwich which was labelled 'Eat Me'... ... Wait that's good it means the trial won't have that as evidence..._

"You'll be fine, girl." I said, my voice sounding older than I was. _... Technically I actually would be 18 times 2 years old, so... 32 years old... but I've lived the same 18 years twice now... Also couple in time travel, and yeah I've been around for a long time, but not chronologically linear.... Also consider that I've died, that's gotta put a few years on your mind..._

"..." she was silent, probably mainly because I wasn't using her name for a change- I was sounding fairly cold.

I got up.

"If she's doing things the same way, Lucca's just downstairs. Let's go."

She got up too, and we walked down the stairs, past the giggling maids and the ever-silent guards.

There, Lucca was panting heavily, same as I remember her.

"Lucca!" I shouted out of not real concern, but concern that I felt no concern about her arrival... _God that's almost a cyclical sentence. _"Are you okay?"

"...huff... huff..." she panted, "Time Travel always has knocked the wind out of me... I'm fine... just give me a sec to catch my breath..."

She took some deep, slow breaths and calmed herself down.

"Okay! You, Marle, have done well. You've kept the timeline intact to how we remember it. However, you, Chrono, totally buggered up things in every way possible by letting us know bits about the future before we learn about them. If we were still operating under Dr Leinstinch's theory of quantum fixed space, then we would be totally and utterly boned. However... As the universe is still in one piece... I have a new theory, based on theories long before Leinstinches!"

I groaned. When Lucca mentions the word 'theory', it means one thing.

A logical and sound rant which takes quite a while and probably would explain everything if she said it with an interesting tone of voice...

_... Or if she made herself look interesting. I KNOW she's kinda hot without the helmet and whatnot, which I vaguely remember her saying is the reason she wears it, but... If she took it off, maybe it would be easier to stay awake... Maybe I should use a small Lightning spell on myself every few seconds to keep myself awake... Yeah! That could work!_

Lucca was still rambling.

"_Lightningia magicalis temporam senoylu noketara."_ I muttered under my breath, guessing the words from how the flow of magic ebbed and flowed in my head from one pole to another.

Every time I started to feel myself feel drowzy during Lucca's rant, a shock of lightning went up from the base of my spine up into my head.

I remembered bits that I had heard in one of her rants before the Festival in the original timeline, and remembered when she was interesting in Biology... How electrical impulses into certain areas of the brain can release certain pheremones.

Wait. _PHEREMONES? oh crap._

I internally panicked in case I had indeed caused a surge in the natural female-attraction pheremones that exist in humans, then realised that I could easily have electrocuted my brain.

_Oops. My bad._

"... And so, the universe hasn't exploded yet because chronitons clearly exist, and thus we have generated a seperate branch of time seperate from the original!"

_Chronitons? _

"Melchior mentioned chronitons. He said they were repressing my memories."

"That's right. They have a strong inertial effect on any sudden changes to the pattern... It's possible that the Gurus have a natural resistance to the chronitons, hence Melchior's memories being intact to this time... Well, anyway, it means that we CAN always start again, even if we die."

"... Does that mean we're immortal?" I asked, realising the implications if it was true.

Lucca looked at me, her face really serious for a while, and then she muttered quietly.

"... If only."

Her face looked like it had a range of emotions: rage, serious-ness, coldness, passion, and sadness.

All in all... She looked confusing.

"In theory, we are capable of trying again and again and again to beat Lavos. However... The force that brought us back, these chronitons I theorise exist.... They need something to push them. That's where your Player comes in. From what you and Melchior [yeah I spoke with him before coming here] told me, he sounds like a fickle, insane, psychopathic teenage god."

"Why teenage? The rest kinda makes sense, but why teenage?"

"... If you were given a universe, and a group of characters didn't do things the way you thought was right, and you could mend it, would you do it?"

"... Of course."

"Even if it means massive changes to that universe's history, and the deaths of many sentient life forms?"

The word death made me remember the Imps I partially electrocuted in the forest.

"Yeah. I saw what you did to those Imps, Chrono. I suspect that the Player has given us more than one chance, because you weren't that cruel before you died- I think that you've battled Lavos enough times now, without memory of what happened prior, that now, with things occuring with memory of those previous times, you feel intense rage, right?"

_... I remember one timeline... Or do I? What if I did the exact same thing each time? What if... One could replay the universe, and find that everything happened the same?_

I was about to tell Lucca to shut up, when Marle snored loudly- she apparently collapsed onto the floor into sleep when Lucca was talking.

_... Oh yeah right, she hasn't really had experience of Lucca's rants..._

I watched as Lucca tried to wake up Marle, and I deactivated my lightning spell, as quietly as possible to prevent Lucca from hearing.

"_Lightningia Finite."_

The shocks to my spine stopped, and I felt a surge of happiness come from myself.

"urgh.... what's going on?" Marle asked, looking bewildered at her position on the floor.

"You fell asleep." I said, getting bored, "And cost us a lot of time. We've got a Magus to hunt."

"Magus?" she asked.

"Oh right, yeah you were kinda out of it first time round... We need to beat Magus here so we meet Frog and then we're considered to be heroes in this time so that we can beat the 3 monstery-things that seemed just like a minor test to me first time round, and then we can do some cool bike riding in the future, get Robo, go back in time, meet Ayla, then take down Lavos, but not in the present or future, I wanna break him when he FIRST LANDED HERE."

"..." Lucca was silent.

"But... That'd mean his effects on our world would..." Marle said.

"Oh yeah. I remember bits from the end of my life now- The bastard psycho-suggested humans to develop from their primitive early days into their modern and future forms. What I intend to do is obliterate all that and put human evolution a few squajillion years late."

Lucca was staring at me in horror.

"Chrono.... You can't..."

"Why not? The bastard has killed me at least once. Someone's gonna get him self some revenge... And besides, how many men can get vengeance for their own deaths before it even happens?"

"I'm with you Chrono," Marle said, sounding tougher than I've ever heard her before, "My kingdom is in threat of being destroyed in just a decade in our own time, so Lavos needs to go now, before he's at full strength."

Lucca still looked worried.

"But... If we kill Lavos, the technology wouldn't have existed for the telepad to exist, and thus, the time travel wouldn't work!"

"... Lucca.... As great as your technology was... I don't think it makes much difference. You said something earlier on about seperate timelines, right? All we're doing is shunting it down a different path- the journey we've taken has already happened, and will continue to do so- all we're doing is separating ourselves from that time."

"But..." she said, looking timid, like she was at school when I wasn't around her to protect her from bullies in the olden days of our youths.

"Peace. Lavos is going down, time will go the way it should... And I will make things right. If you don't want me to do this, you can go home. I'll stop Lavos... But it means you'll be trapped in that timeline forever, with no way to come to this version of me. I'll miss you, Lucca, but I won't ask you to do something you don' want to..."

"Chrono... You are so full of guilt-inducing bullshit that it's funny. I'm coming too."

"Awesomesauce!" I said, the word sounding strange in my mouth.

Marle and Lucca looked at me oddly.

"Awesome... sauce?" they both said at the same time.

I decided to ignore the situation and move out... We had a timetravelling wizard to kill.

"C'mon guys... Let's not focus on what I may or may not have just not said, and let's do what we need to do!"

We left the castle with plenty of hope and fear for the past, the present and the future.

But nothing prepared us for what lay in store for us...

**IN ZER CATHEDRALLLLLL!!!!**

**... Okay, thank you for reading thus far... I like this story more than my attempt at doing Harry Potter fanfiction [don't ask. Let's just say that a 50 year old Harry inside his 14 year old body needs some maturity filters, because effectively raping 14 year olds is something that's kind of unavoidable in that kind of fiction...] So... Woo! We've gotten another chapter done! Now... Chill out, drink a can of pepsi max, review this story, and I might write another one...**

**Oh, and since I forgot to mention this [and won't mention it again]... Chrono Trigger and all of its characters are trademarked, copywrighted and all the rest to Capcom, Nintendo, and so on. The Player is me, but I guess it could be anyone who played the game and imagined a situation where they puppeteered the characters to behave differently... So... Basically... Me.**

**Incidentally, there's 2 things I've been trying to avoid.**

**"...[insert text here]" - ... followed by sentences. I overuse this a lot to convey doubt, fear, confusion, and pain. **

**Also...**

**"..." [Characternamehere] was silent. It's kinda unecessary.**

**If I overuse these again, remind me... I do it a LOT.**


	3. Enter Samus

We went to the Cathedral. We killed a few imps on the way, no trouble there...

When suddenly:

When we entered the Cathedral, we all noticed something different.

A conspicuous lack of nuns.

No nuns.

Therefore.

No snake ladies hissing about laying eggs inside my armpits.

No beheadings.

No... Prelude to the epic fighteage were to recieve.

My main swordhand felt itchy, and my hand touched my sword, ready to flourish it out to kill if needed.

I saw that Marle was quietly touching an arrow in her quiver, and her arm was tensed to hold up the bow.

Lucca was checking how much ammo she had... Rather loudly.

CLACK CLACK CLICKCLICKCLICK WHIRRRRRRRRRRRR SHOOMSHOOMSHOOM CLACK CLACK CLACK.

Then she stopped, noticed me and Marle staring at her, and then her face flushed.

"Okay, bugger this. I've had enough of messing around." I said, speaking as loudly as possible.

"Chrono! Don't!" Marle said, reaching out for me in... fear?

"OI! BEASTIES! COME OUT TO PLAY, PLEASE?"

There was no sound.

Then I noticed an interesting LACK of an object that was rather important.

"... Oh crap. Where's the frigging organ?" I said, finding myself suddenly with an urge to swear heavily more than ever before.

"Hey! There's a note where it was!" Marle shouted after a few seconds of us looking around.

I picked up the letter.

_Hi guys. _

_I am the Player. I know you've heard of me... I've been following your actions from here. Things have gotten bigger than I expected. Take the timewarp that will appear in the room in a second. ... Seriously, you really need to come here._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_The Mysterious Player_

"... The dude signs his things as the mysterious player? Bit dramatic, isn't he?" I muttered.

"Chrono... If someone who appears to have godlike powers is saying things have gotten bigger... What do you think that means?" Lucca asked, looking rather worried, but not as much as she could have been.

"Dunno. Let's just take his timewarp, see what happens."

Almost as if on cue, a glowing twinkle of light appeared in the middle of the room.

We all ran towards it, and Lucca used her Time Key on it.

We rushed through time again.

Normally, when we go through the time tubes, as I think of them, it's a fairly uncontrolled amount of spinning, bright colours, and enough chaos to make you vomit, which I suspect is where the origin of the bright colours comes from, from vomit from passing timetravellers.

This time, however, it seemed calmer [with a lovely shade of blue everywhere], more casual. It felt less as though we were hurtling through time, and more like we were just falling at a steady speed off of a point in space down to another one. Still vomit-inducing, and still as scary, but it was rather more interesting for us seasoned timetravelers.

Eventually, the falling sensation slowed, and the blue colour around us faded.

We slowly materialised in a metal room.

There was a door, a floor, a celing, and metal walls around us.

I went over to the door and tried to open it by turning the big wheel thing it had, whilst Marle and Lucca tried to focus themselves, slightly disorientated from the fall.

The door opened easily, much more easily than any metal door I had previously seen in the future.

_Wait. That time thingie was different from usual. I don't think we're in the future. Alternate universe perhaps? It'll be something that'll excite Lucca in every way anyway._

After a few more seconds of reorientating ourselves, we all walked together down the aisle that led from what we decided was an entrance chamber.

Eventually, we passed some obviously male and female toilets, indicated by a stick figure creature.

Marle quickly went in the female ones, and then we progressed when she was done.

We eventually got to a main room, which had a single large table in the middle, and a few smaller ones here and there.

Almost everything was either chrome or steel, except for a few rusted bits here and there of an unidentifiable metal, but probably was steel.

There were a few checkers boards on some of the tables too.

_Great. a dude who likes to play checkers. I suck at checkers._

We saw a small sign hanging from the celing marked _Cockpit_, and realising we were on some kind of spaceship, we moved on down a small corridor.

There, we saw a young man on a seat, at some really complicated controls.

He swivelled his chair around in our direction.

"Oh, Hi guys. Sorry... I didn't expect that transdimensional warp to work so perfectly, so I expected a bit more of a time delay."

He got up.

"Hi. I'm the Player." he said, offering his hand to us to shake.

Unsure what to say of this slightly overweight, mostly muscular man, we all shook hands with him.

"Okay, as you know, Lavos is apparently a descendant of a Metroid, right? You remember Melchior saying that, right Chrono?"

"Yes... Why, is it important?"

"Yes it is. Transdimensional shifts like that aren't meant to be possible. The Metroids are meant to be in the Metroid universe, and your Lavos is supposed to be a God of sorts in your universe. What's happened is that two seperate plotlines that weren't explained fully were connected together by chance, and there's a breach in the fabric of all realities, including my own."

"Huh? What do you mean?" asked Lucca.

"Basically... If one minor bad guy from one Gaming Universe can enter another, with so much time being passed... They probably all can interact with each other. Last time that happened was in the mid 1980s, in the NES system era."

"NES?" Marle asked.

"Nintendo Entertainment System. It was a device that ran the games that we play. Good console, one of the easiest ones to emulate technically, as it has very little memory requirements. You guys come from the game Chrono Trigger, which ran on the NES's successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES."

"So we are merely game characters? Like pawns in chess?" I asked, feeling offended that this was so.

"Pretty much. However, you guys get to have a soul, because more effort is in your characters than a pawn. Getting back to the point though, last time a huge gaming crossover event happened like this... It was bad. Imagine every villain in every story you've ever read meeting up and working together. Only thing that can stop it is all the heroes of these stories teaming up to beat them."

"You're making a team? Of heroes? But we're..." Marle started.

"You're heroes. You fight monsters. You use magic. You have your own game. YOU ARE HEROES. And heroines, of course." he said, adding that last bit nodding at Lucca.

"So why didn't you pick up Frog and Robo?" Lucca asked.

"Frog has enough issues to deal with, having being cursed and all. And Robo still needs to discover the full extent of his human-like behaviour. If we need them, we can pick them up, but their own personal dramas will slow us down. We need a GOOD team, and you three are some of the best."

"... Who else are you getting then?" I asked, feeling a sense of duty to the Game Universes.

"Firstly, I'm going to get Megaman on board. He was involved during the last great Game War, and he might be able to help. Also... I'll get Samus on too- she's actually from the Metroid Universe, and was occasionally involved in the last war. If I can, I'll get to the multiverse universe known as the VideoLand, which is where the HQ of the 1st war is, but I doubt my Player powers can get me there."

"Player Powers?" I asked, with Lucca and Marle with their mouths open to ask the same question as I did.

"Basically... If a Player truly feels a spiritual connection with the games he plays... He's capable of seperating his mind from his body temporarily, create a body within that universe, and play the game. I, and many others, take it a few steps too far- We meddle with the storyline so as to have a story we can document to people in our world for purposes of fun. I was engineering this story so that Lucca and you, Chrono, would be in love with each other, with Marle also pining after you but you felt nothing for her. Sorry about that. Would've been a good story too. Plenty of romance, rock and roll, sex, and drama. However, things went an unexpected path, and like any good Player, I'll accept the challenge."

"So you don't control everything in a godlike way?"

"If I did, I would lose the Player Powers and have my entire presence in your universe wiped entirely. I can puppeteer emotions ever so slightly, and thoughts can be pushed in a direction, but generally, your abilities are your own, and your achievements are yours. If I was to play the game itself it would be a slightly different matter, but in this extension of your universe in which you guys now exist, you're free. Technically, I've taken you out of the game."

"Oh." I said, staying quiet.

After a little bit, the Player clapped his hands.

"I'll put this on autopilot. The Metroid universe is the closest because of that storyline connection, so we'll be there tomorrow. You guys better get some sleep, and I'll explain some more of what we need to do in the morning."

He showed us our rooms around the metal ship.

My room was a old Guardia Dojo style room, with tatami mats. It had loads of practise swords, a few dummies, and a small bed that somehow reminded me of home when I inhaled nearby it.

Marle's room was a fluorescent pink, and had a huge amount of bookshelves, which was surprising for the blonde bimbo. She also had a computer which could generate any book she could think od with a strange thing that the Player called a printer-slash-replicator device.

Lucca's room was a perfect recreation of her own room at her house, even down to the dent in the wall that was caused by both of us having a play fight when we were little.

We all went to sleep in our respective rooms, and went to sleep, the humming sound of the ship assisting our re-entry into dreamland.

We woke up to the sound of some really old sounding classical music.

We went to the room which was apparently the dining room from our exploration the night before.

"Ah, good morning Chrono! The girls are still asleep. Do you want some breakfast?"

The Player was frying some eggs on a pan using a small stove thing.

"Those eggs look HUGE!" I said, stating the obvious.

"Oh yeah... They're chocobo eggs. Epic creatures. They're basically giant chickens strong enough that you can ride them. There's even some that can basically fly you anywhere in the world, quicker than an airship."

He made me some eggs _sunny side up, just the way I like it_, and then talked for a bit.

"So... No hard feelings about pushing you towards Lucca?"

"... Not really. Lucca's kinda cute. Marle just kinda seemed... more wifey, you know?"

"I know what you mean. Marle is your designated future wife, from beginning to end of the story. However, I personally feel that the Chrono-Lucca dynamic is much more interesting... However, it feels unfair that you have the option of 2 girls in all of existence. There are other women out there, as you'll soon see as we fight the Coalition of Evil."

"... Coalition of Evil?"

"Yeah. I got an old-style Hexidecimal coded signal off of a remote universe, made of glitch cities and planets, talking about a 'Coalition of Evil' being the name for a team of some sort. The war is beginning, and we must get ready quickly."

"... So... Are we at the Metroid universe yet?"

"Yes. We're currently trying to track down Samus' location... For a bounty hunter, she sure is hard to find when you've got a job for her. You go wake up the girls, the scanners will have found her by then. Oh, and there's a save point in the toilets... Um... You do know what a save point is, right?"

"Is it those time warps that don't do anything?"

"Yeah, pretty much. tap it, and I can guarantee that we will get past the next challenge you face, unless it's a considerable amount of time after the save... Because we are not redoing things a lot of times. It's one chance or I go back to my own world and prepare some anti-video game defences there."

"Why don't you do that?"

"Because... I feel an obligation to do this. The fact that I can enter your world has weakened things enough that your Lavos can change its past to have been a Metroid at one point. I need to make things right before I go home. I'll seal the video game dimensional holes that I can access, and hope that nothing breaks out again."

"Okay. I understand. I'll go check on the girls."

I went and knocked loudly on Lucca and Marle's rooms.

After the sounds of showering and clothes being moved, two fully clothed, clean ladies came out of their rooms, looking tired.

"Ugh... I couldn't sleep at all... That computer has EVERY book in our world's history, and then I was trying to crack the code to access other world's... Guh..."

_... Marle? Cracking codes on a computer that's well beyond our universe's capability? Does she randomly learn some stuff after I die?_

"I was the same, Marle... Everything that belongs to me that's in my room was replicated fully, even things I've lost, so I spent most of the night reading some books on the telepad... It definately was your amulet that caused the time traveling thing to happen... One of the books mentions a violent electrical surge with a strange unknown metal. I bet it was that." Lucca said.

"Huh. I slept easily."

I got the girls into the dining area, where the Player, to their amusement, made them a quick breakfast of eggs on toast.

Then, he explained the situation with the scanner.

"Now, I've met Samus before, so she should be answering my call on her communicator, but it's easily possible she's replaced it or damaged it... So... We're relying on old school radio scanning."

"What exactly are you looking for then?" Lucca asked, curious.

"Basically... The word 'Samus'. If she is mentioned on any kind of radio frequency in this universe, then this ship will record it, analyse it, and play an enhanced version to me. It will also try to determine the location of the transmission by analysing the sounds the signal has in the background and matching that to the unique parts of the known planets in this computer's system. Usually the signal itself is enough to track someone down, as they say something like 'person is at the omeril system' or something like that, but little extras like my soundchecker make it almost infalible."

"...How..." Marle asked, completely lost in the sea of technobabble. I understood most of it, but it seemed rather incredible.

One of the display screens on the wall flashed white, and a room appeared on it.

A rocky room, with a man talking into a microphone he held in his hand, with no visible wires attatched to it.

"Echo four-fifty, this is Alpha control, what is your status, over?"

An unseen voice sounded. A distinctly ambiguous gendered voice, as though it was being muffled somehow.

"I'm okay. I'm surrounded by the bastard things. Give me a miniute and I'll eradicate them all."

The Player clapped his hands in excitement.

"Booyeah we've got her!"

"huh? How can you..." Marle asked.

"First of all, Samus is REALLY bad tempered. Also... I took her to the Halo universe last time we hung out, and using a NATO letter followed by two numbers is something they do a lot with codenames over there.... She probably liked the idea a lot. Give me a second to hack into their radio network."

He started to fiddle with some dials that definately weren't there before.

I decided to look around the room properly, having only looked at objects the other day, not the overall look beyond metal.

The dining room was actually circular, although with the amount of doors leading from it, it was hard to tell. There was a small storage area next to the panel with the video radio thing, and there were, as mentioned the previous day, game tables around the place. On a small pedestal in a recess, there was a strange sort of thing, made of gold. it looked like a gravy pouring thingie, but it had a lid.

I was about to pick it up when the Player stopped fiddling with his dials and jumped over.

"You do NOT touch, the Game Genie. Its powers run the risk of stripping me of my powers, and erasing your entire memory of me. Either that, or it will give whoever wields it unlimited power. Either way, don't touch it."

He clicked his fingers, and a wall closed on the recess in the wall. It looked smooth, as though it wasn't there.

The Player went back to his panel, and after a few seconds...

"Allo allo allo, Samus old girl! How are you doing?"

"... Player! You git. Where are you?" the reply came.

"I'm nearby Unidentified Celestial Object 5! That one that you mention in the Captain N era!"

"... Player... Don't mention Kevin to me."

I sensed the puzzlement of the rest of my own team, and I motioned for them to be quiet.

"Listen... Samus. I know that era was a tough one for you. You experienced time travel and saw the one you love become something he hated, and you watched as he fell in love with another. However... You need to GET A GRIP, GIRL!" he said, spitting slightly as he shouted into the speaker.

"If you weren't you, Dylan, I would so find you and rip off your bollocks," she said, making Chrono pale, and the girls look like they were about to giggle, "... Come over here, to Tourian... I'm fighting some random things here and can use your help."

"Samus... Things are bigger than Metroids and Pirates. Remember Kevin? The barriers between worlds are eroding again. Mother Brain has already gotten King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard back, from what my scanners can say about the Punchout and Kid Icarus universes. We need to get the N-team back before it's too late."

"No. I'm sticking to my own universe..."

"What if I get Princess Rosalina? You got along well with her last time..."

"Yeah, only because she had a neat ship/observatory thing. The girl's a total whore."

"Oh come on! I know you don't want all those other universes to be destroyed... Come now, or I'll leave you here, to wait, not knowing what's coming your way..."

"..."

The Player slowly and obviously overdramatically reached for the off switch.

Just before he reached it...

"Okay. I'll come. But so long as you promise we're not getting Simon. I hated him."

"Don't worry, Sammy! Simon is too simple for my plan."

The radio signal ended, and then the Player pressed a few buttons on the walls that weren't there before he pressed them, and disappeared a little bit after.

"Okay guys. We have a problem now. With Samus on board, sleeping arrangements are slightly weird now. You two girls will have to sleep together, the holoprojectors and hormone releasers in the rooms will make it okay for more than one person, and then Samus will get the other one's rooms. However, I want to get this all done as quickly as possible, so let's pick up a few more characters, and annihalate the enemy, okay?"

"You said that Lavos came from this universe, right?" I asked, a thought coming to my mind.

"No. Events have transpired where his own past changed, and combined with the fact that he looks a lot like the picture of Page 3 in the Metroid Prime art booklet, of a mutated Metroid, He has changed to fit. Oh, and by the way, he's left your world to look for you. Lavos is now sentient."

"WHAT?" Me, Lucca, and Marle all shouted at the same time.

"... Consequences. If I take the hero out of the game, the villains will want to follow. Lavos will probably find the Coalition of Evil soon, and if that happens, you guys will have to fight him and win. However, as we're out of the game, we're fighting freestyle. No rules, no turntaking... Just nonstop carnage."

He paused for breath before continuing.

"This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened in my knowledge. In fact, in Comic Book based universes, bad guy and good guy mass wars are getting more popular by the day, and have even extended into canonical comics. In Video Game universes too, there have been moments of crossover too, mainly with Capcom-created Fighting games, but Nintendo themselves also made a huge crossover series of games known as Smash Brothers. Also, there is a game series known as Kingdom Hearts which crosses over children's cartoons with Final Fantasy Game design, and then stuck a dark plot over it. Not to mention the huge vast expanse of crossovers in the non-canonical universes, aka the ones that don't make it into the sellable media in my world."

_... Oh. So that's what he means as canonical. The stuff that is actually sold. So... I'm guessing all the non-canonical stuff is 'Developed' by Players like him, right?_

"Generally, most crossovers can be defeated by the good guys teaming up. However, there's no pressure or means for you guys to leave your universe, and seeing how a Metroid turning into Lavos is what's caused the problems we're going to see... Well... I'd say you guys and Samus HAD to be prepared for what's to come. The Coalition of Evil... Well, we're going to have to see who else is in it before we recruit many more. We should get the N-Team, except for Simon Belmont, because he was a total idiot who barely helped in the Captain N series."

Marle decided to ask the question we all had in our minds.

"N-team?"

The Player hesitated. He looked as though he was weighing what we SHOULD know about this prior team.

He opened his mouth, but then a gorgeous woman in a blue jumpsuit came into the room.

"The N-team was a team of game characters and Lost Humans that existed to destroy the armies that Mother Brain controlled last time. We were chosen purely on the fact that our enemies had joined her. Not every game had enemies on that side, hence why people like Link never joined us officially- Ganondorf was too untrusting of others to join a evil team from another universe."

"Ganondorf? Mother Brain? GAH is there a summarised version of all of this?" Marle shouted in frustration.

The Player chuckled.

"Heh. Sorry about that Marle. The Gaming universes are actually quite diverse. You guys exist in an RPG universe- that's Role Playing Game, for those of you who don't like acronyms. Basically, in your type of game, people run around, kill things, talk, kill more things, and kill more. SURE, the plot is quite good, and the character development exsts, but all of that is meaningless, as the Player does not control that when playing the game- we just control the direction and who to kill first most of the time."

"... So that's why you were messing with our universe?"

He blushed.

"Um... Yeah. Sorry guys. I was expanding it beyond its natural parameters. Actually BEING here, in this astrally projected/Player Powered body, meant that the universe didn't break into chaos, but it also allowed the Barriers of Reality to weaken. Samus... Is the Palace of Power Barrier broken yet?"

The beautiful blonde woman shook her head.

"The anti-enemy gateways are sealed. Only those with no ill will towards anything in that universe can enter." she said in an oddly cold voice.

"... What, even ill will towards the beings of that mirror universe?"

"... Sometimes I forget you've watched the cartoon show... It's eerie knowing that you know stuff that you weren't physically present for." she said, sounding creeped out, something which is fairly obvious from what she said but ** Chrono. Stop narrating so anally retentively.**

_**Sorry.**_

**Great. Now you've totally broken the flow of the story. Happy now?**

_**Can't I just make another chapter?**_

**... Ugh. **

**Sorry guys. Chrono's getting tired... I should've asked him to end this chapter sooner, but meh.**

**Basically, we're writing this AFTER we save the day, and I'm copying and pasting everything that Chrono's writing in his world into a computer document in our world... **

**Sorry if you're a bit annoyed by the sudden break in the flow of the story... Not much I can do about that- the spikeyhead suddenly feels tired like switching a lightbulb off- instantly. **

**I'll make sure he has some coffee for the next chapter, as we'll actually fight something that's worth a fight.**

**Um...**

**Also, while I'm talking to you guys... You'll probably notice that Chrono doesn't mention why I didn't summon Ayla into all this..**

_**Do we have to go into that, Dylan?**_

**Oh yes we do.**

_**Ah nuts.**_

**Well... Chrono kinda felt awkward when back in time, especially when travelling with a party which had Marle in it.**

**Why? Because Ayla notably thought of Chrono as being kinda hot, due to his obvious strongness and general awesomeness in battle- stuff she respects.**

**Technically, if she didn't have Kino, Ayla would be pouncing on Chrono.**

**Literally. [especially since she's catlike...]**

_**Please don't explain this further...**_

**Well... Basically... Ayla and Marle both have blonde hair. Hopefully those of you at the back can see where I'm going here.**

**Ayla is one of Marle's most distant ancestors, on the female lineage.**

**Also... She does have a short discrete night with Chrono in 7 out of every 10 reruns of the universe that I've run in my attempt to get Chrono to survive from within the universe rather from in the game...**

**So... 7 times out of every 10... Chrono is likely to be distantly related to Marle.**

_**Which is why I was easily persuaded by your efforts to put me with Lucca. I instinctively feel most o of the time that Marle's more like a sister... Although Lucca's like a sister-status female friend who I don't really feel related to but we're that close, you know?**_

_**Besides. I'm not into that Luke and Leia shit.**_

**... NOW I understand why you enjoy Star Wars so much! You can relate to Luke's feelings of awkwardness when he realises that his potential love interest [and was intended in the original drafts of the story, back when he was called Starkiller, not Skywalker...] is his sister!**

_**... Damn you Player. You've ruined a good film for me.**_

**Oh, and while we're here guys... You probably won't recognise the ship we're hopping dimensions with... It's the Ebon Hawk, but with a LOT more rooms and modifications. You might get the feel of it when I describe the cockpit or the dining room [the central room... i always imagine it as a dining room or mess hall for smugglers].**

**However, it's had many modifications over the years.**

**1. Bigger, and has more stuff in the same space.**

**Due to a short trip the planet Galifrey pre-modern barrier thingies in a TV universe, the Ebon Hawk, or as I call its modified version, the Epic Peregrine, now has over 30 rooms, but in the same space as it normally had when viewed form the outside. Also, the outside looks bigger due to more gun turrets.**

**2. Bedrooms that customise to your homeworld.**

**A partially magical spell on these rooms from the Harry Potter Bookverse, and some more Galifreyan technology, the bedrooms customise themselves to be what you think would be cool for them to be. In the event that no suitable or even safe bedroom is possible, it is possible to override the magical stuff with pre-programmed spells, which are controlled by the life support system, which is good, as a room with a black hole in it is a hazard to life, but by connecting it to the AI controlled life support system, the black hole room would be replaced by a Hello Kitty themed room, which although is depressing enough to make one suicidal, is not technically life threatening in the immediate future.**

**3. A teleporter.**

**The teleporter is a bit iffy. By teleporting Chrono and the gang up to the ship, I ran the risk of blowing up their entire multiverse, and even destroying the canonical unverses, although I suspect I only would have damaged the Arena area of the DS universe...**

**It was BASED on the teleporters of Star Trek, although it requires no pads or anything... Lucca's room actually had a small blueprint of how they worked, although she never got round to reading it...**

_**There was?**_

_**"OI! LUCCA! QUICK, GET ON THE PEREGRINE! THERE'S A BLUEPRINT IN YOUR ROOM, APPARENTLY!"**_

**You are SUCH a manwhore for her.**

_**Meh. I do what works to get me teh sex.**_

**... Okay, you're pissing me off now. Wake up early tomorrow so we can write the next chapter with Megaman in it...**

_**Do we have to do ALL of it?**_

**Yes. The bit with Roll and that plasma gun? Yes.**

_**But it's embarrasing!**_

**Um... This isn't an epic story we're writing. We're writing a chronicle of the war so that future generations don't need to fight it again.**

_**But... Why must my clothes...**_

**Shush you, unless you want to be forced to write it now, whilst you're tired...**

_**Fine. I'm going to bed.**_

**Finally. I thought he'd never leave. Oh, and by the way, practically nothing in this story belongs to me, except for me, the Player... I guess the Peregrine also counts as my creation too...**

**Oh, and don't worry- this isn't entirely a Nintendo based story. **

**And... Also... i apologise if you think that I was going to write a full retelling of the normal Chrono Trigger story, but trust me, there'll be many reasons to come back to the normal plot but minus all the bits that the gang miss by coming along with me...**

**A few questions I'll answer before I submit this, questions that weren't asked but I'll answer anyway:**

**1. Why were all the stuff in the Cathedral missing?**

**Because I wanted to change their expected situation in a way that they know it was me. Sudden, sharp changes to the plot in a different direction which are equally interesting to the plot but don't Godmode are perfectly within a Player's power, if he has Author mode activated.**

**2. Is this a Captain N story?**

**Technically it features many elements from the Captain N universe, so I felt compelled to mention Captain N as being a previous example of this sort of war. Also, most of the N-team were pretty freaking awesome, so I've decided to keep them, but giving them amnesia over a similar event would be a disgrace to the cool concept of a show [it went downhill after the second season, but season 1 was good.].**

**3. Um... Why the Ebon Hawk?**

**Because it is an AWESOME ship, isn't in the movie storyline of star wars [seriously. extended universe shows a MUCH grittier and darker universe than the movies suggest, even with all the random murders, slavery and wars that go on in the movies.], and is basically the Millenium Falcon on acid.**

**No. I don't condone drugs, but let's face it, the MF was one SWEET ship.**

**4. Why is it from Chrono's perspective?**

**Because Chrono, as a member of a Gaming universe, notably one that is easily ignored [most people I know don't really know about the epicness of Chrono Trigger, and a lot of others are put off by the DragonBall style artwork for the series [it was actually drawn by the same guy... there's actually a good OVA for Chrono Trigger using the style...]...], I felt he had a unique view on this war.**

**It would be VERY tempting to write from the Player's perspective, but... That would suck. Consider. The Player is basically our Scott Summers. He's a bit overly proud of his abilities, which basically involve being able to move from one universe to another, and create plot. In other words... He's basically a trickster.**

**No-one is really sure if he's mortal or not [he will be. I might decide to kill him off later, which will give me reasons to mention Glitch Cities and also make references to the Matrix], and so, he's practically a God.**

**Gods make shitty stories, [Sorry Homer, but seriously, your stories suck, you ancient Greek storyteller you! Who cares about Aphrodite's random sexeage of Hephastus, it made no sense, it was technically cousincest, as all the gods were interelated, and let's not even go into the Trojan War, shall we?] because they are powerful.**

**Amusingly, their power can indeed drive stories, like an engine.**

**But an engine needs a pilot.**

**And who better to be our pilot than the sword-wielding lighting throwing semi-insane teenager Chrono, huh?**

**Now... I've written another 600 words since I sent Chrono to bed. I'm tired now too...**

**Review if you want... I'm curious as to your thoughts on this war that actually did happen, but I have no proof that I can show you in your universe as it was experienced by me in a bout of MEGA astral projection and heavy gaming.**


End file.
